APPENDIX. • 7,5 



The details furnished by Lizana were accessible to Stephens (though not 

 in the form presented by Brasseur in Landa's " Relation," which appeared long 

 after the explorer's death), and he bases upon them his belief that Izamal was 

 occupied up to the time of the conquest. 



The buildings of Palenque, which, though not within the borders of 

 Yucatan, owe their origin to a civilization analogous to that once spread over 

 the peninsula, Avere old in the days of Cortes ; and so were doubtless those of 

 Copan, in the western part of Honduras. It is true, Hernandez de Chaves 

 besieged and took in lo30, by order of Pedro de Alvarado, a city of that name ; 

 but it was evidently not the place now celebrated on account of its ruins and 

 large monolithic idols, probably then as now shrouded in dense forest.* Mr. 

 Stephens intimated as much ; but he Avould have expressed himself with more 

 positiveness, if the report of the Licentiate Garcia de Palacio, addressed in 1576 

 to the king of Spain (Philip II) had been known to him. The last-named 

 writer, perhaps, was the first European who examined the locality, certainly the 

 first by whom it was made known. At the time of his visit the buildings 

 already were in a ruinous state, and he thinks them far superior to anything the 

 barbarous spirit of the natives then inhabiting the region could devise. The 

 traditions of the people, he says, attribute the edifices to immigrants from 

 Yucatan, a view which he adopts, pointing out the analogy in style between the 

 buildings of Copan and those found in Yucatan and Tabasco.f The ruins ot 

 Quirigua, on the river Motagua, in Guatemala, also may be considered as the 

 remains of a city deserted long before the contact with the Caucasian race. 



Mr. Stephens may be mistaken in a few cases ; but on the whole, I think, 

 he is right. I adopted his view years ago, and expressed myself in accord- 

 ance Avith it in English and German publications. It gave me satisfaction to 

 see that Mr. Bancroft, Avho has so carefully treated the subject of Mexican and 

 Central American civilization, concurs in that opinion. " It may be accepted," 

 he says, " as a fact susceptible of no doubt that the Yucatan structures Avere 

 built by the Mayas, the direct ancestors of the people found in the peninsula at 

 the conquest and of the present native population. . . . The Spaniards 

 found the immense stone pyramids and buildings of most of the cities still used 

 by the natives for religious services, although not for dwellings, as they had 

 probably never been so used even by their builders. The conquerors established 



* The present village of Copan, Stephens says, consists of half a dozen miserable huts thatched with corn 

 (Central America, vol. i, p. 90.) 



t Carta dirijida al Key de Espaiia por el Licenciado Dr. Don Diego Garcia de Palacio, aijo 157G ; with 

 English translation and notes by E. G. Squier, New York, 18G0, p. 88.— Translated into German by Dr. A. von 

 Frantzius as : "Amtlichor Bericht des Licentiaten Dr. Diego Garcia de Palacio an den Konig von Spanien etc.;" 

 Berlin, New York, London, 1873.— There is also a French translation of this interesting report by Ternaux- 

 Compans. 



